108 in this practice of early marriage, are really amongst We had sundry buglings in the Pass, and firing of Oh hark! oh hear! how thin and clear, The horns of Elfland faintly blowing! The prolonged echoes of the bugle gave the idea of an organ played in a lofty-vaulted cathedral; and certainly those who miss the bugle performance-though it may seem a little theatricallose a great treat. At length we emerged from the head of the Pass, and climbed round the skirt of the mountain. From the height, we looked down over the Coombh Dhuv, which lay dark and lowering, under its mantle of clouds, a narrow stream winding through the bottom of the valley, far, far beneath us, and the towering black hills stretching away on either hand. view up this Black Valley is certainly one of the The finest things to be seen in all the lake scenery. moun We approached a little platform on the face of the hill, where, what appeared to be two women were somehow occupied. As we neared them, we found they belonged to the numerous retailers of " tain dew," who abounded in the neighbourhood; and they sprang up from their knitting, and presented the fascinating mixture for our acceptance. Sundry cups of the potent (potheen) beverage were imbibed, and the two Irish matrons (who were neither fair nor young) condescended to entertain us with sundry songs in their native Irish. most wild and uncouth description I had ever heard, The airs were of the of unquestionable native growth, and perhaps they had never been heard beyond the limits of those mountains, the place of their birth. They bore a striking resemblance to the old Highland coronachsand though one of them, as we were told, was a comic song, it sounded like a lamentation. But all Irish music is full of sorrow, defeat, and bewailing. It is but an echo of the history of the people, and cannot be tuned to laughter and brisk movement. gayest of Irish songs have a dash of sorrow in them. Even the As we were descending the hill, we met another "mountain dew" merchant coming up, attendant upon a party of travellers coming from the opposite direction. This was a young girl of about twentyas fine a specimen of a mountain nymph as one might see. A tall rounded figure, admirably formed; large dark eyes and blooming face, sparkling with glee and full health; a step like the young roe, quite bounding, as she ran up the path, and climbed the rocks without an effort. Yet she was clad almost in rags; her hair blew about her face unconstrained by cap or bonnet; and I rather think, from the recollection of her bounding step as she sprang up the hill, that she was without either shoes or stockings. But such girls as these, the finest specimens of natural grace and beauty, are to be met with all over Munster, wherever you go. We at length reached the head of the Upper Lake; were rowed down by four stout rowers through that lovely scenery; lunched on Ronyn's Island, where a monarch was crowned; skimmed past many wooded islands, and through sundry rocky channels between the several lakes; wakened up the echoes of the Eagle's Rock with bugle and cannon, startling the eagles from their eyrie; landed at "O'Donoghue's Bed," at Ross's Island, and Innisfallen, island gems of great beauty,-and saw the sun set again in the west, amid a blaze of splendour. Scenery such as Killarney cannot be described; indeed, no scenery can be placed before the mind's eye in words, and therefore we dismiss the Lakes of Killarney by saying:-"Go and see them, you who take continental tours and summer journeys, for there is no scenery in Great Britain which can surpass that which you will find in county Kerry, at Killarney and Glengariff." some The great nuisance at Killarney-and it is a formidable one-is the beggars. They are in the streets, in the passes, among the hills, along the lakes, and even in the most retired places; they dog your footsteps, for miles together. If you crack a joke, they join in the laugh; but every now and then put in a whine for "a half-penny for the love of God." The carmen, the boatmen, the waiters, the boots, are always asking for "a shilling more your honour." The landlord puts the waiters and servants down in the bill, and you pay for them. But when you have seated yourself on the car, thinking all is paid, the waiter and the boots present themselves for " thing from your honour." You see that the putting of them down in the bill was a landlord's dodge. The hire of your car is included in the coach-fare, and you pay it; but the car-man entreats for pay all the same. The ragged fellow who sees you mount on the car with your carpet-bag in hand, asks to be paid for looking on. "The porter, your honour," wants a sixpence, or a penny, or something. And then, when you are seated, the ordinary town's beggars surround you in a body,-the bleared, the halt, the old, the young, the strong, the dirty,-and implore your coppers in the name of all the saints in the calendar. I confess that this nuisance forms a large discount, to be deducted from the pleasures of enjoying the fine scenery of the county Kerry. Were you made of coppers they would all go; there are customers without end there, bespeaking a state of the people of the land, to be mourned and lamented over. The road from Killarney to Tarbert is full of misery. Every little village you come to seems made up of wretchedness. Your car is instantly besieged all round by imploring miserables. coachman, to keep off the rush of them, drove us At Tralee, the into the small inn-yard, the gate of which was immediately barred, and the cries of the beggars followed us there. At Listowel, they rushed after the car in a body when it had started, some of the able boys running for miles, in the hope of a small coin being cast to them. Yet each of these towns had large poor-houses, which told us were full. the car-driver And Tralee seemed a thriving busy place, with a considerable small trade in potatoes, apples, and such like, doing in the streets, which were full of people. What the state of the rural population is, as regards their "homes," let the parish priest of Ballybunion, near Listowel, describe, who thus writes in the Nation of a few weeks back, in reference to a prize offered by the North Kerry Farming Society, for "the best-kept labourer's cottage:" "To speak to the labourers of North Kerry of decent cottages, is a mockery at which fiends might grin. In no part of Ireland has demolition been more ruthlessly, systematically, and extensively carried on. Neither Farney nor Mayo, Connemara nor Kilrush, could show more monuments of extermination. The face of the country is hideous with ruins, whose gables, black and bare, pointing to the sky, would seem to call heaven to witness the barbarities perpetrated upon their unfortunate occupants. And the few still remaining labourers' ELIZA COOK'S JOURNAL. habitations could certainly not be dignified with the name of cottage, being for the most part unfit for the lodging of brutes. Some of these are wretched, dreary, and cheerless cabins, with crumbling walls and falling-in roofs, which are overgrown with weeds and moss, and pervious to every shower; others of them, still worse, are loathsome and fetid hovels, constructed of sods, pieces of old roof-rotten thatch, and green rushes, and run up, where permission is given-which is very seldomagainst the walls of their former houses, and against ditches and turf-banks-sometimes even within the arches of bridges! And yet, surrounded by such scenes as these, the authors of desolation and misery so widespread and appalling, had the astonishing and unequalled hardihood to offer a prize for the bestkept labourer's cottage !'" SUMMER SONGS. A HAPPY title for a book of Songs; we only wonder that it has not long since been appropriated. "Summer Songs!" there is the sound of bees in it, the rustling of harebells, the gurgling of brooks, the whistling of blackbirds, and the glad music of Nature. Song and Summer are twins. The poet revels in the sunshine; for the nonce he is a pantheist, and deifies the trees, rocks, woods, and tall mountains. He discerns a splendour in the grass, and a glory in the flower; the Ghebir-spirit lives again in him, and his soul exults, When, from the naked top Of some bold headland, he beholds the sun All poets love the summer; how full is Wordsworth of its praises; and Keats, Shelley, and Byron never could have enough of it. Nothing but the perennial summer of Italy could satisfy them. Summer! the very word is poetry and music; its fullness of life, its abounding joy, Nature arrayed in all her glory, the golden morning and the grey dawn, the green woods and the waving corn-fields,-all combine in doing honour to this high festival-season of the year. The little volume whose title we quote below* will gratify many lovers of sweet thoughts and delicate fancies. Mr. Hibberd is a genuine admirer of Nature in her happiest moods, and he sings like one who is His introduction is a picture verily in love with it. in itself; in it he thus speaks "Many grey dawns and golden mornings have come down upon the green world while I have been sitting under the old oaks, where the grasses were still dew-sprent, and the daisies yet asleep. At such times it has been my joy to hear the first whistle of the blackbird, and the earliest love-note of the thrush. There is something in the soft hush of daybreak, when a human heart meets it in the green woods and primeval solitudes of the world, which suggests feelings not to be described by the pen; and if such a lover of green things have a relish for the graces of verbal song, he will be tempted, as I have been, to But I knew that babble forth his love in verse. Chaucer and Spenser, and our dear Shakspere, had done this, and to breathe out my weak rhymes there would have been sacrilege. "It was under just such emotions, however, that, one spring morning, when earth and sky seemed * Summer Songs. By Shirley Hibberd. Chapman. London: John married in a holy harmony, and the flowers seemed "Through that golden summer I warbled out these 'Songs,' and distorted the flowing harmony of Nature But ere the autumn with their discordant measures. I began to grow sane again; I had had my fill of rhymes, and knew that poetry was greater when felt and left unwritten." Love and Summer are good company, and the "Supremacy of Love," of which the poet here sings, is worthily associated with that grand season of her reign. Love reigns alike over Death and over Time; For He who built up all the worlds, and scattered pearls and flowers, Has shed his Love in morning light, in dews and twilight And though, O Death! he gave to thee an empire for an hour, The pilgrim stars went wheeling round, and chanted, as they Their songs of joyous triumph, as in blissful days of old; And spoke in sweetest accents, the supremacy of Love. Boys Mr. Hibberd touches homelier subjects in even a more thrilling strain,-such as household hopes, fireside joys, and domestic trials. But we have a word of objection to offer; in the strain entitled "My Boyish Days," he takes up the familiar topic of youthful happiness, contrasting it with the sorrows and trials of maturer years. We must confess to some degree of scepticism on this point of popular faith; we question whether boyish days, especially of boys who are sent to school, and placed under the authority of a harsh teacher, or of boys whose parents are either inconsiderately fond or unkind, do not suffer more then than they do at any future period of life. We are rather of opinion that there is a fallacy in the prevalent notions of school-boy happiness. may enjoy the novelty of life in early years more acutely as than they do afterwards, but they suffer as they enjoy; and the suffering compensates for the enjoyment. If the heart is easily gladdened then, it is also as easily embittered. If there be any discipline at all, the youth feels it keenly; whereas, at the time, he thinks nothing of the pleasures of being; he has not had the experience which makes pleasures really felt, but the curbs, restraints, and hindrances imposed upon him, are full of bitterness. The enjoyments of the man are certainly of a higher kind than those of the boy, while the discipline in which he lives has become habitual, and ceases to be felt. But we know that this view of matters is heretical, and not at all in conformity with most poetic strains on this subject, Mr. Hibberd's among the number, 110 The lines entitled "Regrets" embody an idea of another sort :— Why come the memories of departed years, Like spectres stalking through the midnight gloom, Why will the follies and the wanton wiles Of times gone by, still march upon the thought, With stern reprovals and with sorrows fraught? Oh! I have sinned! and in the blighting air Or fresh in feeling as a fervent boy. Here the sentiment is poetical and true, and we offer no objection. The whole of this poem is written in a fervent strain, and breathes a fine religious feeling. But the following verses, embodying a succession of household pictures, will give a better idea of the author's tone of thought and descriptive powers: A BIRTH-DAY SONG. Addressed to S- on the 30th of April, 1850. To that bright eye whose starry ray Now float the peals of merry chime And when each round of days and hours Perchance around your knees, some day, And when we in our years decline, In happy description of rural scenery, combinations of images, we may Thoughts,' and chaste 66 instance Rambling "Lines to S on the Seasons of the Year," "An Evening Sketch," and a "Dirge for the Old Year," which latter is full of elegance, as the following specimen will bear witness : His joys and sorrows are gone, They blushed but to fade away. Like the gloom of the soul in the season of love, Like the softened light of the purple eve, Or the hush of the heart beneath hope's reprieve, For there he lies dying, dying- While the months are round him sighing- Like him we went forth in spring, While the months are round him sighing- In domestic feeling and the associations of home joys and sorrows, Mr. Hibberd evinces a delicacy and a truth of sentiment which does honour to his heart. "First Love," "To Her I Love," "Mary," and "Absence," are truthful touches of nature. Several pieces, entitled "Flower Songs," are sweetly poetical and novel in character. The song entitled "Mary" is tender and pathetic : My Mary is no longer here, No longer by my side, As when of yore she gazed on me With such a woman's pride. She's gone to take her long, long rest, Her last and peaceful sleep; Her spirit haunts the realms above, And I am left to weep. I touched her cheek, 'twas cold as stone, And I was frozen too; I stood all mute-unmoved-alone, Myself I scarcely knew! They spake to me, they bade me go, They told me she was dead; And yet without a tear I stood, Nor heeded what they said. * I wandered on, as wandereth A weed upon the wave; I gathered flowers from nooks she loved To plant upon her grave. I brought home buds and leaves which grew Where she was laid to rest, And as a mother clasps her babe I clasped them to my breast. My Mary's gone,-the flowers are here, And if but pale and odourless, Such writing comes from the heart, and goes to it; and in those delicious little gems which embody the symbolical ideas of the various flowers whose songs they are, the same tenderness of feeling is manifest, combined with a true poet's love for the innocent and beautiful. But we must leave this little volume of "WHAT noise is that?" said a judge, disturbed in the hearing of a case. "It's a man, my lord," was the answer of the doorkeeper. "What does he want?" "He wants to get in, my lord." "Well, keep him out!" The audience is comfortably seated; the case is going forward; to make room for the new comer, some must shift their seats, and perhaps be jostled about a little; so they are all perfectly satisfied with the judge's dictum of "Keep him out." " You have yourself been in an omnibus when a stout passenger has presented himself to the conductor, and petitioned for a place. You are all snugly seated-why should you be disturbed? "The seats are full ! "Keep him out!" But the intruder is in, he presses forward to the inner corner, perhaps treading on some testy gentleman's toes. How you hate that new comer, until you get fairly "shook down" and settled again in your places! The door opens again,-another passenger! Keep him out!" cry the company, and strange to say, the loudest vociferator of the whole, is the very passenger who last came in. He in his turn becomes conservative, after having fairly got a place inside. 66 It is the same through life. There is a knocking from time to time at the door of the constitution. "What's that noise?" ask the men in power. "It's a lot of men, my lords and gentlemen.' "What do they want?" "They want to come in." "Well, keep them out!" And those who are comfortably seated within the pale, re-echo the cry of "Keep them out." Why should they be disturbed in their seats, and made uncomfortable? But somehow, by dint of loud knocking, the men, or a rush of them, at length do contrive to get in; and after sundry shovings and jostlings, they get seated, and begin to feel comfortable, when there is another knocking louder than before. Would you believe it? the last accomodated are now the most eager of all to keep the door closed against the new comers; and "Keep them out!" is their vociferous cry. Here is a batch of learned men debating the good of their order. They are considering how their profession may be advanced. What is the gist of their decisions?-the enactment of laws against all intruders upon their comfort and quiet. They make their calling a snug monopoly, and contrive matters so that as few as possible are admitted to share the good things of their class. "Keep them out!" is the cry of all the learned professions. "Keep them out!" cry the barristers, when the attorneys claim to be admitted to plead before certain cry both courts. "Keep them out!" cry the attorneys, when ordinary illegal men claim to argue a case before the county court. "Keep her out!' barristers and attorneys, when Mrs. Cobbett claims to be heard in her imprisoned husband's cause. "What a woman plead in the courts! If such a thing be allowed, who knows where such license is to end?" And she is kept out accordingly. "Keep them out!" cry the apothecaries, when a surgeon from beyond the Tweed or the Irish Channel claims to prescribe and dispense medicine to English subjects."Keep them out!" cry the doctors, when the Homeopathists offer the public their millionthgrain doses. "Keep them out!" cry physicians and surgeons and apothecaries of all ranks, when it is proposed, as in America, to throw open the profession to the female sex. But you find the same cry among the working classes of every grade. Mechanics and tradesmen insist on all applicants for admission to their calling serving long apprenticeships. If the apprenticeships are not served, then "Keep them out "is the word. Shoulder to shoulder they exclude the applicants for leave to toil. Knob-sticks are pelted. They must join the union,-must be free of the craft,-must conform to the rules,-subscribe to the funds,-pay the footings, and so on; otherwise they are kept out with a vengeance. 66 In the circles of fashion the same cry is frequent. A new man appears in society. "Who is he?" Only So-and-so! He is a retired grocer, or as Cobbett called Sadler, "a linendraper;" and the exclusive class immediately club together for the purpose of "Keeping him out." He is "cut." Even the new man of high-sounding title is accounted as nothing among the old families who boast of their "blue blood." Wealth goes a great way, but still that does not compensate for the accident of birth and connections among these classes. The money Every class has its own standard. classes have theirs too. Even tradesmen and their wives go in sets, and there is always some class outside their own set, which they contrive to "keep out." The aristocratic contagion thus extends from the highest to the verge of the lowest class of society in England. Is not monopoly the rule among us, whenever we can find an opportunity of establishing it? Monopoly or exclusivism in art, in theology, in trade, in literature, in sociology. Look at the forty Royal Academicians setting their backs up against every new-comer in art, and combining with one accord to "Keep him out." That is the monopoly of art; and people at large call it a humbug; but they are not more tolerant or wise when their own craft comes to be dealt with. Each in his turn is found ready to combine with somebody else, to "keep out" all intruders on their special preserves. The "Flaming Tinman," in Lavengro, pummels and puts to flight the poor tinker who intrudes upon his beat; the costers combine to keep out freshmen from theirs; English navvies band together to drive Irish navvies off their contracts; and Irish tenants pick off, from behind a hedge, the intruders upon their holdings. Even the searchers of the sewers maintain a kind of monopoly of their unholy calling, and will recognize no man as a brother who has not been duly initiated in the mysteries of the search. The sewer-searcher is as exclusive in his way as the leader of fashion at Almacks. 66 Keep him out!" is, in short, the watchword of all classes, of all ranks, of all callings, of all crafts, of all interests. We used to "keep out" the foreign corn-grower, but though he may now come in, there is exclusiveness and monopoly in ten thousand other forms, which no legislation can ever touch. WIN AND WEAR. THERE'S no royal road to greatness, Would you great achievements dare? Brother, then, be up and doing,Brother, you must "Win and Wear." Toil and labour,-never stopping Till you make the prize your own; For you know, 'tis "constant dropping Wears away the hardest stone." Never slack sublime endeavour, Nor 'midst cheerless toil despair; If you'd rise above your fellows, Brother! you must "Win and Wear." "Tis the lesson Nature teaches All throughout her wide domain ; And the text from which she preaches, Is "that labour leads to gain." Moral worth, and honest merit,Brighter crowns than monarchs bear,These you never can inherit, Brother! these you "Win to Wear." THE INTERNAL MONITOR. T. MILLS. According to Lucan, Cato, being urged, after the battle of Pharsalia, to consult Jupiter Ammon how he ought to shape his future course, he returned an answer wiser far than could have been obtained from the combined intelligence of all the oracles :-" On what account," said he, "would you have me consult Jupiter? Shall I ask him whether it is best to lose life or liberty? Whether life be a real good? We have within us an oracle which can answer all these things. Nothing happens but by the order of God; let us not require of him to repeat to us what he has sufficiently engraven on our hearts. Truth has not withdrawn into those deserts; it is not engraven in those sands. The abode of God is in heaven, in the earth, in the sea, and in virtuous hearts. Let the inconstant, and those who are subject to waver according to events, have recourse to oracles. For my part, I find in Nature everything that can inspire the most constant resolution. The dastard, as well as the brave, cannot avoid death. Jupiter can tell us no more." DIAMOND DUST. THE purest joy that we can experience in one we love, is to see that person a source of happiness to others. KINDLY appreciative words may bring upon the spirit of a man a softening dew of humility, instead of feeding within him the boisterous flame of vanity. PRIDE frustrates its own desire; it will not mount the steps of the throne, because it has not yet the crown on. SOUND not the vain trumpet of self-condemnation, but forget not to remember your own imperfections. THE thinking man has wings; the acting man has only feet and hands. ODDITIES and singularities of behaviour may attend genius; when they do, they are its misfortunes and its blemishes. The man of true genius will be ashamed of them, at least he never will affect to distinguish himself by whimsical particularities. COMPLAINT against fortune is often a masked apology for indolence. WE are oftener deceived by being told some truth than no truth. LENITY and severity are the extremes of partiality. OUR minds are as different as our faces; we are all travelling to one destination-happiness, but none are going by the same road. WHATEVER discipline of pain or toil affects individuals, is on a gigantic scale and in ten thousand instances, working in the world. As we become more truly human the world becomes to us more truly divine. FACTS are the ore, truth the metal, and cant the scum. MERE learning is only a compiler, and does with the pen what the compositor does with the type,-each sets up a book with the hand. MONEY will feed gluttony, flatter pride, indulge voluptuousness, and gratify sensuality; but, unless it be an engine in the hands of wisdom, it will never produce any real joy. It is a noble species of revenge to have the power of a severe retaliation and not to exercise it. HE who never relapses into sportiveness is a weari. some companion, but beware of him who jests at everything. HUMOUR is the pensiveness of wit. THERE are lying looks as well as lying words, dissembling smiles, deceiving signs, and even a lying silence. TRIFLES. As if the natural calamities of life were not sufficient for it, we turn the most indifferent circumstances into misfortunes, and suffer as much from trifling accidents as from real evils. I have known the shooting of a star spoil a night's rest; and have seen a man in love grow pale and lose his appetite upon the plucking a merry-thought. A screech-owl at midnight has alarmed a family more than a band of robbers; nay, the voice of a cricket hath struck more terror than the roaring of a lion. There is nothing so inconsiderable which may not appear dreadful to an imagination that is filled with omens and prognostics: a rusty nail or crooked pin shoot up into prodigies.-Addison. Just published, price Two Shillings, postage free, A BALLAD; the Words and Music by ELIZA Cook. London: Charles Cook, Office of "Eliza Cook's Journal," And may be ordered of all Music-sellers in the Kingdom. The Number for Christmas Week will contain UNDER THE MISTLETOE, A CHRISTMAS SONG, Printed by Cox (Brothers) & WYMAN, 74-75, Great Queen Street, London; and published by CHARLES COOK, at the Office of the Journal, 3, Raquet Court, Fleet Street. |